Henderson Park buys Paris hotel property

London-based property investor Henderson Park has acquired the Westin Paris-Vendôme from Singapore-based sovereign wealth fund GIC. GIC will exercise a put option to Henderson Park once the wealth fund has fulfilled its end of the deal under French labor law.

While Eastdil and Freshfields Bruckhaus Derringer advised GIC, de Pardieu Brocas Maffei, Jones Day and Gide Loyrette Nouel advised Henderson Park during the transaction.

If the two groups follow through with the sale, this hotel will be Henderson Park’s second in Paris. The group made its first acquisition in November 2016 with Le Méridien Étoile, Paris’ largest hotel. “The ‘Macron effect’ has stimulated a renewed business confidence that is acutely tangible from both a domestic and an international perspective, while the forthcoming 2023 Rugby World Cup and Paris 2024 Olympic Games will only further reinforce the city’s world leading status as a tourist destination,” Nick Weber, founding partner of Henderson Park, told Property Magazine International.

In Paris’ first arrondissement, the 428-guestroom Westin Paris-Vendôme is near Place Vendôme, Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Louvre Museum, the Tuileries Garden and the River Seine. The approximately 301,390 square-foot Hausmannian hotel, which was built in 1878, was originally called the Hotel Continental.

This is the latest of Henderson Park’s hotel buys this year. The group also acquired the Ledra in Athens in June and the London and Birmingham Hilton Metropole hotels for £500 million in September. Now, the investor is negotiating an asset management plan with Hilton to update the Hilton Metropole hotels, its first hotel properties in the UK market.